Yes, AGAIN (Imported post)

So I broke my foot falling off a curb. Again.

That was Saturday. Stepped off a curb, my right ankle gave out and my foot twisted and I went down, hard. The thing is, this happens to me so often that while it hurt -- it REALLY hurt -- I decided to ignore it. I was leaving my friend Kate's place, on my way home to get ready for a date. I sat on the curb for a minute, debated calling Kate to come help me inside, and then got in my car and drove home. And got ready for my date.

I was aware, this entire time, that my foot was hurting probably more than it should, given my prior experience with such things. I decided to ignore that and go out, because 1) I hate making a big deal out of something that turns out to be nothing and 2) I had a date. This doesn't happen THAT often, and I didn't want to cancel to sit home by myself and think about how my foot hurt.

I arrived at the restaurant and proceeded to have a lovely time for the next several hours, except for how much my foot hurt. And kept hurting. And got worse. Date said several times "Are you sure you don't want me to take you to the ER?" No, no, I kept saying, I'll go home and put some ice on it, and will see how it is in the morning.

I got up to limp to the bathroom a couple of times and by the last time I did this, I knew I was in bad shape. Half an hour or so later when we got up to go, I couldn't put any weight on it and date had to help me to my car. At this point if it hadn't been a first date I might have had him take me to the ER, but seriously? On a first date? Awkward!

During the 15 minute drive home I became aware that putting pressure on my foot from the gas pedal was causing pain to kind of shoot up the back of my leg. Also my toes were kind of tingly. Then I realized that to get out of my car and to my front door, I'd probably have to crawl, or hang on to the side of the house; and I realized, too, that if I got inside and got up tomorrow and it was worse, I'd have a really hard time getting myself back out of the house to go to urgent care.

So I stayed in the car and took myself off to the ER. Usually when I'm at the ER it's for one of the kids, or one of my parents, to be honest; it's a surreal experience to be there by oneself. I had a brief flare of hope that maybe I'd have a cute resident, since, after all, typically one is at the ER in pajama pants that have been vomited on, or a bloody shirt; I still looked fairly cute in my sparkly tank top and skinny jeans. But no.
I got to go to x-ray right away, then sat on a gurney in the hall for a long time listening to nurses and techs and residents have the same conversation over and over about the time change. There was a drug-seeker getting more and more irate because no one was giving her drugs, which she seemed to think violated her constitutional rights. Finally she got up off her hallway gurney and stomped out. I thought she she be more appreciative of having the ability to stomp, really, unlike some people.

Hedgebaby with three broken legs. Which is awful, but way cuter than me.

The resident, eventually, confirmed a fracture of the fifth metatarsal, otherwise known as the bone I have broken twice before. I had to take my pants of to get a splint, because of COURSE I was wearing my skinny jeans; then I had to sit around in a gown while they looked for some scrub pants for me to wear home because of course the jeans wouldn't go back on over the splint. (Although, now I have scrub pants, so, score!) After splinting me, the med student was writing up the order and had to ask me how to spell "crutches."

Then it occurred to me and the medical student that I wouldn't be allowed to drive home with this temporary splint on my foot. And it was three am. (Four, if you didn't factor the time change into account.) Fortunately my lovely sister who lives 20 minutes away was up, for no good reason, and came to get me, drove me home, got me in the house, and tucked me in.

Apology accepted, kid

Mimi started taking a very very small dose of Pr*zac two weeks ago. I think we are starting to see the effects, here and there. She finished her homework last night -- I was able to talk her through a difficult spot and help her understand the concept without a gigantic meltdown, which has been a rare thing this school year. She seems more cheerful. She has slept through the night in her own bed at least twice this week.

But she also is extremely excitable and distracted, even more so than usual. I have to ask her five or six times to put her shoes on or turn off the tv or settle down so that we can sit down to dinner. Getting ready for school in the mornings has been a nightmare this entire week. Boo feeds off Mimi and copies everything she does, so there have been several mornings where I have dragged both girls out of the house, screaming, teeth and hair unbrushed, to deliver them to school 15 minutes late and arrive at work half-an-hour late myself.

She's not on any sort of ADHD med right now. We stopped all meds about a month ago to see if her anxiety level diminished. It did, a little bit, but not as much as the psychiatrist would have liked. So, the anti-depressant, which has been shown to be effective in small doses for anxiety in kids. But we didn't want to start any other meds at the same time, because we needed to be able to judge how this was working. She goes back for follow-up on Monday and I guess we will discuss all of this then and decide if she needs yet another medicine, or, you know, just some restraints. (Kidding.) (Sort of.)

I don't mean to imply that life with Mimi is always difficult, or always about her history of trauma. My lovely girl has a whole lot going for her and many qualities that make her lovable and fun to be around. At least half of my parenting with her is fairly, well, "normal" (whatever that is) -- did you brush your teeth, how was school, no, you can't have ice cream for breakfast, I love you too, no you can't have chocolate before dinner, thank you for helping set the table, stop bugging your sister, give me a hug, have a good day, listen to your teacher/dad/grandma. Etc. I don't think constantly about her adoption, and her life before that. Often, yes, but not all the damn time. More so lately, because it has clearly been on her mind more and she is definitely going through some processing of her history before she was adopted. And when she's processing, I know we are going to have a bad evening or night or following day.

The other morning the girls' dad came to take them to school so I could leave for work early. This did not happen, because the girls were being uncooperative screaming banshees, and I was frustrated and still needed to get ready for work myself. I made the poor decision to let M handle the getting-ready process so I could get ready myself. I got out of the shower and heard screaming. Poked my head out of the bathroom and saw Boo running around in her underwear, and Mimi eating breakfast in her pajamas. And M yelling at them both to hurry up. I got dressed and combed my hair and blow-dried and brushed my teeth and 20 minutes later, Mimi was still in her pjs, Boo was still in her underwear, and M was still yelling. I came into the living room to hear Mimi yell from the kitchen "I HATE THIS FAMILY! I HATE BEING IN THIS FAMILY! I WANT A DIFFERENT FAMILY! I AM GOING BACK TO CHINA!"

I've heard this before. I tend to take these outbursts with a grain of sale. Usually I say something like "Oooh, sorry to hear that. I would miss you if you went to China." It deflates her anger and makes her annoyed that I am not freaking out about her threats. M, however, doesn't always (or, to be honest, ever really) get that it's not personal, it's not really about hating us. It's just the only way she knows to express her frustrations and the way she knows will hurt us. It's the worst thing she can think of to say and every time she says it and I respond calmly and non-threateningly she feels that tiny bit more secure. M doesn't get this. He never has and I don't think he ever will. So he yelled something back at her like "Well I don't like this family very much right now EITHER."

Yeah, mature. I know. My point here is not to complain about M, although I could (that would be a whole other blog, with daily entries, footnotes, citations, etc.). It's to point out that despite Mimi's trauma, anger, rage, she feels safe enough at home with me to express it in words that have meaning and sense. She is processing her trauma and working through it and when calm is able to say things like "I bet my family in China misses me" and "Boo doesn't even have two moms. She just has one" (in tones of massive superiority) and "My brain is this way because this is how my mom and China made me." She's getting it. A little at a time, with lots of patience and discussion and moments of rage and everything else. If M could refrain from responding to her at a maturity level slightly lower than hers, we'd probably be making even more progress. Because she's starting to understand the things he says, too, and process them. And after she has outbursts, she is almost always sorry, and almost always apologize, unprompted. I can't say the same for M.

As we were leaving I calmly told M, "Don't come out in the mornings for a while." He snapped "I don't want to anyway." Later that night Mimi said to me "Dad doesn't want to come over because we weren't behaving." And I said, "well, Daddy and I both like when you girls listen to us and follow directions, and you definitely weren't doing that this morning. But it's not ok for Daddy to yell at you any more than it's ok for you to yell at us. And if he decides not to come see you then he's probably not making a good choice." We talk a lot about choices -- good, bad, difficult, etc. I want the kids to know they have control over some things (whether or not they lose tv privileges, for example, and if they choose to go to bed RIGHT NOW or in half an hour. Heh.)

Oh and the apology? Five minutes after her outburst, she said to me "I'm sorry I hate this family. I'm sorry I hate Dad." I started laughing. Tension diffused, just like that.

life is messy

It has been a super-annoying week.

Mimi and Boo have both had difficult days, although they at least had the grace to alternate; Wednesday Mimi raged and screamed from the time I got home from work right straight through until bedtime; tonight Boo started whining at me the minute I walked in the door, everything from "I want milk!" to "That's BOOOOOORING" to "my thumb tastes nasty." I am thinking about ripping my ears off.

I made my kid cry by threatening to trash her play-doh.

My kids keep substituting the word "poop" into random song lyrics.

The house is a wreck and I'm having family and friends over tomorrow for Boo's birthday so I have a ton of clean-up to do. Plus presents, decorating, wrapping, etc.

I got called judgmental on twitter, in the process of asking people not to judge others, in regards to the whole Similac formula recall. Some people can't successfully nurse their babies. Some people choose not to. Can we all stop being MEAN about it, please?

I posted a link to a blog post about taxation an the middle classes on facebook, and started a whole thing without intending to, and called someone an asshole, and somehow got insulted for being short. I just thought it was an interesting blog post. I should really know better by now.

I have crochet orders backed up the wazoo and barely any time to work on them. I strained a tendon in my hand a few weeks ago and couldn't crochet at all for a couple of weeks, which didn't help.And I was recently reminded about some stuff I still owe people from the summer. And it practically takes an act of God to get me to the post office, I don't know why.

I got accepted as a hack writer for a content provider which is wonderful because I desperately need even the pittance that might bring in, but I have not been able to get my brain functional enough to write a 500-word article about perch fishing in Michigan. Seriously.

The cat keeps eating the dog food. The dog keeps eating the cat food.

And this is not even counting the normal, everyday woes like not having a functioning washing machine, the laundry piled everywhere, my broken tooth, the house falling apart around me, my negative checking account balance, Mimi's psychological issues, childcare scheduling difficulties, and my tendency to start crying at the stupidest things these days.

This is my life. It's insane. I wish certain things were very different. I would like to be able to pay my bills and own a house and sent my kids to gymnastics class and buy pretty things for myself.
No time, no time, no money, no time.

Really, the reason I started this post was to say, gah, I have had a crap week so here's some cute stuff to look at. But instead I made a wish list at etsy to cheer myself up. Someday when I have discretionary income again, I am going to buy myself some cute stuff and not feel guilty about being good to myself and everybody else can just bite me.

I'm here. I'm alive, and I'm grateful for that. Life is messy. The alternative is worse. I beat myself up for lots of reasons, most of them related to things listed above that aren't really even in my control. I am not the best mom in the world. Or the nicest person. But I'm the best me there is and that's what you're all going to get.

This post was inspired by this one. Please read it. It's important.